Bleak Falls Barrow (Quest)
Background "Jarl Balgruuf the Greater thinks that I may be able to help him. His court wizard Farengar wants you to obtain the Dragonstone, a map of dragon burial sites, from Bleak Falls Barrow." Walkthrough Bleak Falls Barrow Travel to the Nordic ruins of Bleak Falls Barrow and enter. Be careful while traveling to the ruins, though; as a dragon may spawn outside. Low level players may want to enter quickly becuase 3-5 of bandits can be found at the entrance. It is advised to save before entering the Barrow no matter how high your character's level is because a glitch may force you to revert to last save. When you come to a bandit in a room with a lever in, you will see him pull the lever alerting you to an arrow trap, loot his body (he has a torch, they tend to come in handy), then turn your attention to the pillars on the left of where you entered, the order, from left to right, is Snake, Snake, Fish. Order is correct for Xbox 360, PC, and PS3 users. Arvel the Swift Travel further through the dungeon and you'll come to winding stairs that go downwards. There are Skeevers at the bottom, and just around the corner waits a Wounded Frostbite Spider. Kill it and then speak to Arvel the Swift, who is trapped in a spider web. He wants you to free him, which you should do by hitting the spider web. As soon as he's free, Arvel will make a run for it - he is called "the Swift", after all. Chase him down and kill him, or let the Draugr do the work for you. When you cut him down, he recoils and has low health allowing you to kill him before he can escape. Even if he manages to slay the draugr, he will foolishly run over the pressure plate trap steps away from the scene of the battle and get himself impaled on the swinging wall trap. The Golden Claw Arvel will have the Golden Claw with him. Continue until you pass through a hall where some Draugr wake up and attack you. Watch out when moving around in this room as there is a pressure plate trap near the entry and exit that will trigger a swinging wall trap. Avoid the plate and move on. Your next obstacle will be another trap, just time your movements to get past a swinging blade trap. You can disable them with a chain pull after passing them. You will travel to another room with three more Draugr. Kill or avoid them and follow the path upstairs to continue on the path to the Golden Claw. When you come to a room with a creek running through it, go through the metal gate into the creek; you can get the gate to open by pulling the chain on the right side. Eventually, you will stand before a massive door with three movable rings. The Golden Claw is the key here, both literally and figuratively. You will have to align the three rings in a specific pattern, which can be seen when zooming in on the Claw in your inventory. The correct combination is on the palm of the Golden Claw. When you have correctly aligned the rings, use the Claw in the middle of the door to open it. Word Wall Past the door lies the real treasure of the crypt: A Word Wall that will teach you the first word of the Dragon Shout 'Unrelenting Force' (Though it cannot be used because you don't have any dragon souls.). Right afterwards, a powerful Draugr will emerge from the sarcophagus nearby. Kill it, loot the Dragonstone off its corpse, and leave the crypt through the exit nearby. Return the Dragon Stone to Farengar Secret-Fire. *Farengar Secret-Fire serves as the Court Wizard for Jarl Balgruuf the Greater at Dragonsreach in Whiterun. *If you are at a high level you will fight a Dragon Priest instead of a Draugr. This Dragon Priest does not have a mask however. Return to Dragonsreach and give the Dragonstone to Farengar (with a stop off at Riverwood to return the Golden Claw to Lucan). Irileth will run in almost immediately and ask Farengar to come quickly to speak to the Jarl, beginning the quest Dragon Rising. Notes *Upon your return to Farengar, it's possible to find him in conversation with Delphine, who wants his translation of the Dragonstone as soon as possible. Their conversation is informative. *Some people may already have the Dragonstone on them from The Golden Claw quest . If so, you can just give it to Farengar. *There is a locked chest behind the word wall, reachable by following the water stream backwards. *There is also an unlocked chest next to the waterfall that appears left of the stairs leading towards the exit. *After making a new character and reaching Riverwood, you can go directly to Bleak Falls Barrow, and kill Arvel for the Golden Claw, then finish the Dungeon and get the Dragonstone off the Draugr's Body, and then exit, map to Riverwood, go to the Riverwood Trader, and give the Golden Claw to him. (gold amount varies by level) and then head to Whiterun. So you basically did two quest in one, and saves you from going back to Bleak Falls Barrow. *When fighting the final Draugr (Boss), you may run back to the bridge and go into Sneaking Mode, and use a bow to get a couple shots with the bow, then equip a melee weapon/spell or whatever you prefer to finish him off. *There is a small ledge that leads up to the exit if the player jumps onto that it is possible to use the bow to attack the Draugr without it hitting you, however it can still use its shout on you. *If your sneak is sufficient, there is a ledge you can jump to, to the right of the bridge after you cross it heading away from the altar (after waking the Draugr up), where the edge narrows as it follows the stream. If your sneak is good, it will not even see you to attack you, allowing you to whittle it down with a bow. *Once the Warlord Draugr is defeated, when you loot him for the Dragonstone you can also loot a War Axe with a Frost/Ice Enchantment though a battleaxe has also been reported. *It is possible to kill the Draugr Warlord before he has finished climbing out of his coffin at Level 1, equip a Two handed Nord sword you have improved to (Fine) and swing away as soon as he sits up, he will not get even 1 hit on you if done correctly. *When you come back to Farengar after completing the quest, Delphine will be in his room. She won't open any dialogues with you however. *The Warlord Draugr uses Unrelenting Force shout sometimes. *When you finish the dungeon, you exit and you are in the mountains there is a lake, at the bottom of the lake are ruins and some chests. *For players with sufficient sneak, this quest can be very easy. Many of the draugr in the barrow are asleep, which will allow the player to assassinate them one by one. Bugs * Not sure if this is wide spread but, when you complete the quest and go into Whiterun court to talk to Farengar halfway through him talking everyone in the court becomes hostile towards you keeping you from talking to the Jarl and activating DRAGON RISING quest. The solution was to run from Whiterun after a few minutes outside Whiterun the Dragon Rising quest activates on its own. After that everything goes back to normal. Also noted on PC version. Looks like this was due to a Fire Rune cast in the Hall to try it out, no more visible because of a graphic glitch on the wood stairs at the entrance, and when a guard step onto it exploded adding bounty and turning everyone hostile. So a better solution was to cast another rune in a place that no one walked by routine so that the previous rune was canceled and no one could step on it. * There is a bug that occurs when leaving Arvel for the Draugrs, having run off he disappears along with all quest markers making the quest impossible to finish. Loading a previous save or killing him before he runs will fix this. * The pillars in the puzzle room or the rings on the claw door will not move, exit and re-enter Bleak Falls Barrows. Reloading a previous save may resolve the issue. *There is bug that makes the Draugr (Boss) unlootable. Simply saving and then loading will fix this. The bug occurs most often when the Draugr is killed on the bridge leading to the word wall or further away from his coffin, killing the Draugr on the word wall plateau reduces the bug chance. Achievements |trophy = }} Category:Skyrim: Whiterun Quests